Insidious ***

Director: James Wan

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lynn Shaye

Ty Simpkins, Leigh Whannell, Andrew Astor, Angus Sampson

Perhaps inspired by Sam Raimi's recent attempt of reviving the scream and laugh-fest with his brilliant Drag Me to Hell, screenwriter Leigh Whanell and director James Wan have come up with a worthy entry to a genre that more often than not fails to satisfy. Insidious is a joyful ride of a movie that carries its "horror movie" badge with honor, announcing its camp from the instant the title appears.
Teasing us with the promise of haunting our nightmares for a couple of days after we're done watching it, the film cleverly sets its story in that most familiar of devices: the haunted house.
We meet the lovely Lambert family as they move into their new house; schoolteacher Josh (Wilson), his wife Renai (Byrne) and their adorable children are barely settling in when we get the spooky music, the wandering camera and an eventual flash of a ghost or two.
When their son Dalton (Simpkins) falls into a mysterious coma, the family is forced to move, only to realize that the demons and ghouls won't stop following them because they're not after a house, they're after their child's soul.
With this, essentially simple, premise the film turns into a truly delightful experience in which you're always conscious that something is seconds away from making you jump from your seat. It's this complicity with the audience that makes Insidious such a success. The film's friendly approach still gives you enough mystery and mood to make you feel like an active participant. This is boosted by the performers, particularly Byrne who owns up the scream-queen persona, getting rid of her usual onscreen arrogance. Shaye as a strange exorcist is a sight to behold (as are Sampson and Whannell as her unorthodox assistants) with Wilson using his reliable stoicism to turn in a surprisingly moving turn.
With all its intentional DIY scares and its constant, but self aware, use of homage, Insidious is the kind of movie that sneaks up behind you. Even if you'd like to think of it as a forgettable, cheap horror flick, you'll find yourself being haunted by its unusual sincerity days after watching it. 

(My) Best of 2010: Supporting Actress.

5. Elle Fanning in Somewhere

Playing Cleo, the young daughter of a movie star (Stephen Dorff), Elle Fanning gives Somewhere its heart. Sure, you might say, children always give movies their heart.

Yet what Fanning does isn't about "aww"s. Her combination of here-too-soon ennui and keen observance (she's like a movie camera!) are what give the movie its center in a much more transcendental way. Cleo rarely says something without meaning it and the movie delights itself watching her go through seemingly trivial moments (the eggs Benedict moment is one of pure intimate joy, see the way she smiles throughout the entire sequence).

What results heartbreaking about her is how much she needs to be loved by the people she loves. Paired with Dorff she has a natural chemistry that never allows you to disbelieve they are related, what's more, you feel a connection.

Cleo's angelical face lights up when she sees her father and we understand that she has learned to compromise with what she desires and what life can actually give her.

4. Lesley Manville in Another Year

Few performances in 2010 were as painful to watch as Lesley Manville's in Another Year. Playing the needy Mary, friend to an older married couple (Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent) she creates a portrait of someone whose loneliness has become who they are.

Manville takes us through Mary's deconstruction; from insecure yet hopeful temptress to utter desolate woman in such a delicate way that you feel for her.

Her insecurity makes it impossible for us to stop looking at her. Notice how in one of the scenes Mary arrives at a barbecue and talks nonstop about why she's late. She makes her way saying hello to everyone around the table and eventually realizes one of her friends had been holding a baby all along. Because we were so fixed on Mary, we also had been unaware that the baby was there...

Mike Leigh often fixes the camera on Manville and we see how Mary is, in a way, trying to escape the confinement that shapes her universe.

When she's unable to do this, her eventual surrender is a thing of heartbreaking beauty.

3. Barbara Hershey in Black Swan

How does one make Grand Guignol achieve emotional truth? Countless actresses have attempted to this to no avail (think Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and to an extent Joan Crawford as Joan Crawford) and their performances are usually more admired for their theatricality than their humanity.

Erica in Black Swan would be an exception. Inarguably obsessive and freakishly psychotic to a point, she makes her daughter Nina's (Natalie Portman) life both paradise and a living hell.

Looking after her child in the only way she knows, Erica is nosy, cruel and overbearing. During the first part of the film we see how she behaves with her daughter, often praising her for getting

a starring role while simultaneously bringing her down and reassuring her that everything she lacks is more important than what she can do.

Yet as the film moves forward we realize that Erica in fact despises Nina. This isn't about "living vicariously" anymore, it's a straight forward competition between a bitter human being and her seemingly schizophrenic daughter.

Hershey gives in to Erica's pain with such ease that we never see her twitching or "acting". She doesn't try to make her character likable or understandable. She surrenders to Erica's lack of love for her daughter and explodes through the possessive actions she replaces it with. The last time we see her, she's crying as her daughter dances the Swan Queen.

We understand that these tears are as much about resentful pride as they are about envy.

2. Marion Cotillard in Inception

During Inception's opening scene, director Christopher Nolan indulges himself with the self aware gimmicks of his editing, his cameras and his "groundbreaking" screenplay.

He introduces us to his characters, sets the basic ideas that he will fail to expand for the rest of the film and wreaks havoc like a lunatic orchestra director who has decided nothing but tubas will do.

In the middle of this chaos we spot Mal (Cotillard) for the first time, as perhaps the only feminine presence in the film (don't even mention Ellen Page...) Nolan tries to confine her by the rules of what defines a femme fatale. She delivers her lines with dramatic aplomb, looks like a true movie star and eventually is revealed to be insane.

Of course Marion Cotillard takes this to another level. During that first sequence she possesses this unsettling calm that nobody else in the movie ever achieves. As you see Mal strut her way out of the scene as a, literal, dream begins to collapse, you can not take your eyes away from her.

In subsequent scenes, the more Nolan tries to make her worse (even her name is meant to diminish her) the better Cotillard gets. She finds the soul of this woman who ironically isn't an actual person. It's her performance alone that delivers the message Nolan tried to express using his technical prowess like an army. Cotillard understands that exercising extreme control would've made her mechanical and dull, it's through delicately violent restraint that she becomes the only thing about Inception that truly haunts your dreams.

1. Amy Adams in The Fighter

The thing about Amy Adams' Charlene in The Fighter is that you never see her coming. Like the best pugilists she seems to come out of nowhere to deliver unexpectedly powerful blows.

The first time we see her she's working at a bar. The actress, who has used us to her naivete and cute eagerness, here blends seamlessly into the seedy bar background.

She gives Charlene an entire history with subtle movements, facial expressions and a lot of attitude. As we learn more about her character she becomes more and more enigmatic. We understand why Micky (Mark Wahlberg) is fascinated by her.

On their first date they go to a movie. Micky chooses to impress her with Belle Epoque, Charlene's confused reaction and straightforward "I had to read the whole fuckin' movie" are priceless.

The best thing about Charlene is that she's so un-selfconscious that you chuckle when you think that she would probably hate a movie like The Fighter.

She's judged by Micky's family as a girl who thinks she's better than the rest (an MTV girl...whatever the fuck that is) and as such she's trapped in a limbo of sorts. In a way she's better than the rest of the characters (even from a human point of view) yet at the same time she's deeply frustrated because she hasn't done all she wanted to do in life.

Adams infuses Charlene with a deep melancholy only overshadowed by her relentless love for Micky. She supports Wahlberg's character in a non-scene-stealing way by merely being herself. She's sassy without becoming a cliché, sweet without becoming a victim, sexual without becoming vulgar and overall she's the one character in the film whose too real humanity punches you right in the gut.

Black Swan ****

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis
Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied

Once upon a time black swans were thought to be a myth. White swans had been considered the epitome of royalty and beauty since times immemorial but its dark counterpart was thought of as a representation of utter evil; the antithesis of the pure, uncorrupted beauty in the white swan. What must've been the surprise of explorers when they stumbled upon the actual species in the Southernmost part of the world during the seventeenth century?
What could it mean that this creature did exist?
This uncertainty and eventual shock are the central dilemma of Nina Sayers (Portman) a New York City ballerina desperate to be cast as the Swan Queen in her company's production of Swan Lake.
Nina has perfected the graceful technique to play the White Swan but she is told by ballet director Thomas Leroy (a slimy Cassel) that she completely lacks the sexual energy and imperfection needed to portray its evil counterpart.
She struggles to win the part and gets it just as a new dancer joins the company; Lily (Kunis) from San Francisco arrives exuding the raw sexuality Nina can't muster, soon she becomes convinced that Lily is after her part and the only way to keep this from happening is for her to find the black swan within.
She descends slowly down the kind of, not-so-subtle, spirals Darren Aronofsky usually throws his characters into but unlike some of his other creations, Nina's breakdown has a flawless structure.
On the surface Black Swan feels like The Wrestler meets Suspiria by way of Cronenberg but once you look at it carefully, it really has more in common with Carrie than with Argento's horror film.
Like Stephen King's character, Nina's breakdown is parallel to her discovery of things until then unknown to her. While Carrie unleashed her telekinesis in a terrified attempt to exert some control over the unexpected changes brought over by womanhood, Nina begins to be terrorized by her doppelgängers who walk by her on the streets, haunt her house and spy from beyond mirrors as she finds that deep within she can also be dark.
Nina has decided she wants to achieve perfection and in her limited world view this can only be obtained with control; therefore when Thomas asks her to "let go" she doesn't know how to handle this.
It's as if she's been living in a fabricated world all along and has no awareness of the evil that exists in the world. This is represented by Nina's home which she shares with her possessive mother (Hershey) a former ballerina living vicariously through her daughter.
Watching their softly lit blood tinted apartment, where even the hallways seem to constrict Nina, we understand that in a way she has never left the womb, not because she doesn't want to but because it's what she knows best.
Black Swan is anchored by Natalie Portman's fierce performance. Like the movie, she first deceives us with her fragile beauty and we are led to assume this will be yet another of the actress' performances in which her delicate features harbor contrived fear and contempt.
Soon we learn that this isn't the case and we see her shatter before our very eyes. Beyond her method immersion into the character (her ballet technique seems outstanding!) there is something transcendental in the way in which she lets go of all vanity.
We see Nina's transformation from outside (Aronofsky's technical team does wonders showing bizarre wounds as Nina literally begins to think she's becoming a swan) but we also detect that something has changed inside her. It's something in her eyes that demands our attention in the way her body can't.
In the final scenes of the film, the Portman we are watching isn't the one we started with. During one particular scene as Nina finally becomes aware of what the truth is, she makes a choice. This moment isn't highlighted as much by the external elements (although the movie owes itself to Tchaikovsky) but by a heartbreaking look Portman throws at us, seemingly out of nowhere. How she's able to encompass fear, resignation and something that scarily resembles pride is what makes her decay so beautiful to watch.
In her search for perfection we could draw parallels about seeking artistic accomplishment but on simpler terms the film discusses this search in life as a whole. Therefore we are left wondering if Black Swan is a cautionary tale about the peril that comes with perfection (and if so, is it an ode to mediocrity?) or is it a reminder that everything that's worth something comes through a certain amount of pain?
Structurally Black Swan resembles a Russian doll, each containing a miniature double of the one before it. In a way, Swan Lake is Black Swan is Nina Sayers (again with the doppelgängers).
One of the biggest mysteries about Swan Lake is the fact that we never know why the evil sorcerer casts the spell on the princess. Why is he turning her into a swan? When the ballet begins this just is and we rarely get time to even question it.
Why are we to assume that this spell isn't some sort of deserved punishment?
Similarly in Black Swan we are never really sure of who is casting this spell on Nina, is the movie perhaps a prequel of sorts to the ballet in which we are to assume that maybe the princess had an insane mother or couldn't cope with homosexual thoughts?
Or is it finally a questioning? Is the Swan Queen actually fulfilling her fate? However twisted and tragic we might perceive it as.
It should be noted that Black Swan is a completely self aware movie. There is not a single camera move Aronofsky hasn't meticulously planned. From the way in which sometimes we follow Nina as if the camera is afraid to look into her face and see who she's becoming to the film's mirror motif, one that's not in the slightest original but the film doesn't really brag about inventing anything new.
It's also a selfish movie for it never pretends to worry about creating some sort of universal code we can use as metaphor. We are not supposed to identify with Nina. We either like her, hate her, pity her but we are not supposed to love her. After all the Swan Queen is never truly able to break the spell.
Structurally the film itself mimics Nina or at least the version of Nina it's letting us see and then it reaches a point where just like the ballerina in distress, the film too realizes that it doesn't know how to become the black swan. But how do you make a movie that loses itself?
In practice this would perhaps mean the director recurred to some robotic device or simply let the cameras roll without choosing what happens in front of the lens. Symbolically though Aronofsky settles on making it dangle dangerously between melodrama, camp and horror. Up to the very last shot the film seems to be trying to decide which one it will become and by then audience members will have made their minds about what kind of movie they just saw.
And whether it is high art or trashy exploitation, by letting each one decide, Aronofsky has created the perfect finale: the one that goes beyond "the world as a stage" conventions and bluntly reminds us that in the end we might be the only ones applauding our own curtain call.